VPT supports integration with the application performance monitoring (APM) tool AppDynamics. AppDynamics allows you to monitor an application from the inside, capturing metrics from the application like process memory and CPU usage as well as hardware and network metrics.
The standard metrics captured by VPT give you an outside perspective of how your application performs under load. They allow you to see what your users will see. APM metrics give you an inside perspective, allowing you to see how the application is being affected by the load. When integrating with AppDynamics, you can see metrics from both VPT and AppDynamics, giving you a complete picture of your application all in one place.
Creating a connection to AppDynamics
To create a connection to AppDynamics, you must already have an AppDynamics account, either on-prem or cloud. You will also need the credentials for an account that can be used to create a connection to AppDynamics. The steps below will walk you through the process of creating the connection and the information needed to do so.
From VPT, click on the three-dot menu on the top navigation bar and then click on Settings to navigate to the Settings page.
From the APM Settings page, click on Connect APM and then select AppDynamics and click Next to open the New APM – Credentials modal.
Enter the following information to test and save the connection:
Account Name – The AppDynamics tenant account name (for most on-prem, single tenant controllers, this will be customer1)
Account Nickname – A nickname you can give to the account for identification in VPT
Controller Host – The hostname or IP of the AppDynamics controller
Controller Port – The port of the AppDynamics service running on the controller (typically 443 for HTTPS and 80 for HTTP)
Username – The username for a user in the AppDynamics account specified
Password – The password for the username
Access Key – The access key for the AppDynamics account
Once all the information is entered, click Test Connection to send a request to the AppDynamics controller to verify if VPT can authenticate with AppDynamics. If the connection fails, review the values you entered and make any necessary corrections.
Once a connection is established, click Save to save the connection. You will be returned to the APM Settings page.
Modifying or deleting an APM Connection
You can modify or delete an APM account if there are issues or changes to your AppDynamics account.
From the APM Settings page, find the connection you want to modify or delete and click the vertical dot menu on the right side of the row.
Click Edit to bring the APM Credentials page with the current connection information.
Modify any of the values as needed and click Save. If a connection can be made with the updated values, you will be redirected to the APM Settings page.
To delete a connection, click on the vertical dot menu for the desired connection and click Delete. You will see a confirmation appear.
Click Yes to delete the connection.
Create an APM Profile
Once you have successfully connected to an AppDynamics account, you can create APM profiles to use to capture AppDynamics metrics for VPT test runs. An APM profile is a collection of metrics in AppDynamics that you want to capture in VPT while tests are running and for reporting after test completion.
From the APM Settings page, click on the Account Nickname for the connection which you would like to use to create a profile.
On this page you will see any applications configured in your AppDynamics account.
Click Metric Profiles > for the desired application you wish to capture metrics for.
Here you will see the list of any existing profiles. You can modify, delete, or create new metrics profiles.
Click New Profile to create a new APM profile.
Select the metrics you wish to collect from the tree on the left, give the profile a descriptive name, and click Create to save the new profile. You will be redirected to the Profiles page where the new profile can be seen.
You can also modify or delete existing profiles by clicking the vertical dot menu on the right and selecting Edit or Delete respectively.
Using an APM profile to capture AppDynamics data for a test run
After you have created a connection and made at least one APM profile, you can select a profile during test run configuration to collect AppDynamics metrics for the test run. More information can be found in the Configuration article. Only test runs configured with APM profiles will have data from AppDynamics during the run and after for reporting, so be sure to select the correct profile when configuring your test.